Cadillac ATS, Ram 1500 Named Car, Truck of the Year!

While the debuts from the Detroit Auto Show dominated the automotive news cycle this week, an important bit of information also hit the web: the winners for the North American Car and Truck of the Year have been announced. The car of the year is the Cadillac ATS, while the truck of the year is the Ram 1500. While we're pleased to see the Cadillac win, we're more impressed that the Truck of the Year electorate pulled their collective heads out of each others asses and voted for a truck…for truck of the year. Allow us to explain.
PHOTOS: See more of the Cadillac ATS
The car market is an ever-changing entity. What were typical vehicle classes in the 1920's are not the same are they are today. But for a very long time– like 1950's until the 1990's– vehicles were largely the same. So to have an award for car of the year and truck of the year made perfect sense.
Then something happened in the 2000's. The crossover came about. It's not quite a car, but not really an SUV (which falls in the truck category). So the jurors for the NACOTY and NATOTY decided to lump these crossovers into the truck category, rather than create a new award genre. As a result of this, vehicles like the Mazda CX-9 and Ford Transit Connect have been past winners. It's ridiculous.
PHOTOS: See More of the Ram 1500
So, it is with this growing criticism that the jurors named the Ram 1500 as truck of the year, temporarily staving off questions about the award's credibility. The Ram was selected, though, because it had more crossover-like features, including a comfortable cabin and air suspension rather than a traditional truck setup.
So really, Chrysler was more responsive to the needs of buyers, by creating a truck with crossover attributes. Such changes take years to employ in a new vehicle, while a group of people voting on which cars they like could change the award overnight. The Ram may have won this year, but how many more years with Subaru station wagons considered trucks by the voters will pass before they pull their heads out of the sand? Who knows.
Source: North American Car and Truck of the Year